Summary: Ten years after the war ended with humanity proving victorious, society is in the process of rebuilding itself. Skitters are kept in refugee camps cordoned off by large brick walls and monitored like prisoners. Children that wore harnesses are treated as second-class citizens, denied basic human rights, registered and tagged with microchips that track their movements. In this dark future, Ben Mason is the notorious leader of an underground resistance, now fighting on the other side of the battle line against former allies, friends, and family alike.

Warnings: Dark subject matter, and heavy in political diatribe. AU after Season 1. Unlike my previous fics, this story WILL NOT focus on a single romantic pair. It's a general fic, and will attempt to incorporate most all of the characters from the show. There will be romantic pairings of every nature: heterosexual, homosexual, OCxMainCharacter, etc., that being said, romance is not the main plot, and pairings are not a focus so much as a consequence of the story. This story will not be updated regularly like my other fic, but intermittently.

Prologue: The End

The war is over. What comes next? God only knows.

- Last entry in the war journal of Tom Mason,
Second-In-Command, 2nd Massachusetts
(Presumed date) May 17, 2015

...

There was no air conditioning in the building. The room only had a few tiny slit windows that lined the ceiling. They were the only source of light, yellow rays of sun streaming in and cutting through the dreary atmosphere. The muggy summer weather weighed heavy in the air. The walls were white washed brick; they made the place appear brighter, cheerier in an eerie way. In the room there was only the table with two chairs, one placed on either side.

Tom nodded stiff acknowledgement to the guard holding the door open, an oversized grunt in a blue suit.

"You have two minutes, Master Framer," the guard said.

Tom entered the room and took a seat in one of the chairs. Ben was seated across the table from him in the other. The door thudded closed and there was a series of clicking noises as locks slid into place.

Ben hardly looked his twenty years of age. His features were smooth, his skin slightly bronzed and hair bleached gold by days spent baking in the sun. He was well-built, streamlined with hard, wiry muscles. Despite the chains that bound his wrists to the chair and ankles to the ground and the collar around his neck that could deliver a thousand volts of electric shock directly into his central nervous system at the touch of a button on the guard's hip, he wore a carefree smirk. Only his eyes, cast with shadows of dark torment, belayed the true depth of his maturity and grasp of the severity of his situation.

"This is nice. It's been awhile since we've been able to just sit down and talk," Ben spoke first. Though he kept his tone light, his words had a noticeably sharp edge to them.

"I'm at a loss, Ben. I've done everything that I can," Tom started, a quiver in his voice. He lowered his eyes to study his weathered and calloused hands balled together on the table top. They were visibly trembling despite pouring all his strength into willing them still.

"Not everything," Ben retorted bitterly.

Tom quickly darted his gaze up. He could hear the intended meaning in Ben's voice, but he needed to see it for himself in those grisly features. He tried to recall what the young man before him had looked like before Ben's expression had become so gnarled with bitter resent, but all Tom could see was a sinister perversion of the gentle child Ben had once been.

"This isn't what I wanted for you. You know that," Tom whispered.

"Yet you did nothing to stop it," Ben replied unimpressed. He turned his face away, shifted his body, causing his chains to rattle and clank. Tom flinched from the sound, that awful reminder of where they were and how far they had come from where they'd been.

"I did everything that I could," Tom insisted, his tone becoming a desperate plea, "I'm still doing everything that I can but…but…"

"It isn't enough," Ben roared. He snapped his eyes back on Tom and hissed, "You're a hypocrite, a coward, a liar and you disgust me. I can't even stand the sight of you, you make me so sick."

"You don't get to say those kinds of things to me, not after what you've done," Tom returned with just as much venom, "Not after I held my son's broken body in my arms-"

"I'm you're son, too! I'm still you're son," Ben cut in, his voice cracking with emotion, "Or am I not…?"

Tom slumped over the table, overcome with the sorrow mangling that question.

"Why can't you understand? We're trying to build a world…a new world so that humanity can rise up…" Tom murmured.

"Yeah. But this world you're building isn't meant for me, is it?" Ben interrupted, "For me or the rest of my kind."

"It can be," but even as the protest fell from Tom's tongue he knew it was falling on deaf ears.

"You didn't answer me," Ben whispered, peering up at Tom with shivering ominous orbs, "Am I not still your son…?"

The door opened and the guard called in, "Time's up, Master Framer."

Tom rose from his chair, his gaze trained on the floor. His feet shuffled unsteadily forward. He felt he drifted more than walked towards the door.

"Dad?" Ben called after in a hollow croak, "You didn't answer me."

It would forever echo in Tom's mind minutes, hours, and years later, Ben's steady candor, underlined with only a slight tint of melancholy.

"Dad."

Tom paused at the door, looked back, curious at the change in tone. The guard watched Tom, darting alert glances every so often to Ben, finger hovering over the button that could drop Ben unconscious, writhing in muscle spasms on the ground, with one touch. Tom had seen it once before, the effects of that collar, and the memory still haunted his dreams. He hoped in that moment he wouldn't have to see it again, God, please, not in that moment.

"This is your last chance, dad," Ben told Tom. He grinned, features a tormented caricature of his childhood face; his eyes seared with horrors untold, "Say your good-byes now, you don't want any regrets, right? After all, tomorrow is my execution. I'll be dead by dawn."

Tom took a deep breath, let it out slow. The air trembled across his lips.

"I'm sorry, Ben," he said. He started out the door and hesitated a moment, his hand rest on the frame. It was metal, cold to the touch. Wearily, he murmured across a soft breath, "I'm sorry, Rebekah, I loved him…it wasn't enough."

Tom exited the room and the door slammed shut behind him, its heaviness resounded in his chest as he stalked down the hall and out of the building, never once looking back.

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AN: Thanks for stopping in! Please let me know what you think. Review, review!

I'll try to get chapter one up in the next couple weeks because I know it's hard to gauge a story's as interesting from something so short. Once I finish writing the last chapters of Fire Light, and can start it's next part, then I'll get up chapter 1.